Daily Calendar for Sunday, March 24, 2024
Question of the Day
What is the origin of the phrase “burning the candle at both ends”?
That phrase was coined by the American poet Edna St. Vincent Millay in 1920. It comes from her poem “First Fig”: “My candle burns at both ends; / It will not last the night; / But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends— / It gives a lovely light!”
Advice of the Day
When sheep collect and huddle, Tomorrow will become a puddle.
Home Hint of the Day
If a knot comes loose from the flooring you’ve laid, just glue it back in place with carpenter’s glue. If you lose a knot that’s come loose, fill the hole with wood putty and stain the area to look like a knot.
Word of the Day
Node
Either of the two points where a body’s orbit intersects the ecliptic. Ascending: The body is moving from south to north of the ecliptic. Descending: The body is moving from north to south of the ecliptic.
Puzzle of the Day
What word is that to which if you add a syllable, it will make it shorter?
Short
Died
- Queen Elizabeth I (English monarch) –
- Jules Verne (author) –
- Archbishop Oscar Romero (Salvadorian human rights activist) –
- Richard Widmark (actor) –
- Robert Culp (actor) –
- Garry Shandling (comedian) –
- Marie-Claire Kirkland-Casgrain (Canadian politician) –
Born
- Horace Gray (Supreme Court justice) –
- John Wesley Powell (explorer) –
- Harry Houdini (magician) –
- Edward Weston (photographer) –
- Fatty Arbuckle (comedian) –
- George Sisler (baseball player) –
- Ub Iwerks (animator, cartoonist) –
- Thomas E. Dewey (politician) –
- Clyde Barrow (bank robber) –
- Joseph Barbera (cartoonist, producer) –
- Steve McQueen (actor) –
- Billy Stewart (singer) –
- Tommy Hilfiger (fashion designer) –
- Jim Parsons (actor) –
- Peyton Manning (football player) –
- Keisha Castle-Hughes (actress) –
- Christopher Briney (actor) –
Events
- Roger Williams granted charter for colony Rhode Island –
- Clement Hardy was issued a patent for a rotary disk plow –
- NYC Mayor Robert A. Van Wyck formally broke ground for construction of the NYC subway system –
- President FDR issued statement appealing to Hungarians to help Jews escape from Nazis (WWII) –
- Nicholas Alkemade survived an 18,000-foot fall from a plane –
- The Tennessee Williams play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof opened on Broadway, with Barbara Bel Geddes as Maggie, Ben Gazarra as Brick, and Burl Ives as Big Daddy –
- Entertainer Elvis Presley was inducted into the U.S. Army –
- Maser patented –
- Senator Robert Kennedy was first to reach summit of Mt. Kennedy in Yukon Territory –
- U.S. spacecraft Ranger 9 crash-landed precisely on target in the Alphonsus crater of the moon after transmitting to Earth 5,814 photographs of the crater region –
- The beaver became a symbol of Canadian sovereignty –
- French premier Jacques Chirac signed a contract to build the first Disneyland-type amusement park in Europe, on the outskirts of Paris –
- The largest oil spill in U.S. history, initially estimated at 240,000 barrels, occurred after the Exxon Valdez struck Bligh Reef in Alaska’s Prince William Sound –
- An 18.7-inch-long goldfish set a world record –
- Boston archbishop Sean O’Malley was elevated to cardinal at a ceremony in St. Peter’s Square in Rome –
Weather
- Eighty-three degrees F at Plymouth, Indiana –
- Twenty-five inches of snow, Kansas City, Missouri –
- 92 degrees F in St. Louis, Missouri –
- Snow in the mid-Atlantic states covered cherry blossoms, which had bloomed in the previous week’s 80-degree temperatures –
